They insist they tried to keep the crowds at bay reminding them this traditional burial place for Joseph, the Biblical patriarch is, after all, holy to Muslims too.

But the religious site was most of all a symbol of Israel's continuing occupation.

Israeli Jews only claimed it when Israel seized the West Bank in the 1967 war.

'Liberated area'

So the Palestinian flag has now been raised by triumphant crowds, who thronged what they call a "liberated area".

This will certainly add further strain to the now much weakened cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian forces, and Jews in the near-by settlement immediately took to the streets in protest at this desecration of the shrine.